International Communism and the Cult of the Individual

Leaders, Tribunes and Martyrs under Lenin and Stalin

Explores the international development of the cult of the individualReveals this international dimension to be the distinguishing feature of the cult of personalityRanges across different periods and countries to consider many key players

This book explores how the communist cult of the individual was not just a Soviet phenomenon but an international one. When Stalin died in 1953, the communists of all countries united in mourning the figure that was the incarnation of their cause. Though its international character was one of the distinguishing features of the communist cult of personality, this is the first extended study to approach the phenomenon over the longer period of its development in a truly transnational and comparative perspective. Crucially it is concerned with the internationalisation of the Soviet cults of Lenin and Stalin. But it also ranges across different periods and national cases to consider a wider cast of bureaucrats, tribunes, heroes and martyrs who symbolised both resistance to oppression and the tyranny of the party-state. Through studying the disparate ways in which the cults were manifested, Kevin Morgan not only takes in many of the leading personalities of the communist movement, but also some of the cultural luminaries like Picasso and Barbusse who sought to represent them. The cult of the individual was one of the most fascinating, troubling and revealing features of Stalinist communism, and as reconstructed here it offers new insight into one of the defining political movements of the twentieth century.

Kevin Morgan is Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at the University of Manchester, UK. He has published extensively on the history of the communist movement including the three volumes of his Bolshevism and the British Left (2006-13). He is a founding editor of the journal Twentieth Century Communism.

“Kevin Morgan has performed an inestimable service for students of international communism. … as a study of non-Soviet communism, Morgan’s book is excellent. Now that it has been published, one cannot claim to understand communism outside the Soviet Union without having read it and incorporated into one’s own analysis of the phenomenon the many insights it thankfully contains.” (Jay Bergman, English Historical Review HER, Vol. 135(564), October, 2018)

“This is a work of considerable accomplishment and erudition. It displays a deep familiarity with the available literature on individual leaders. It is enlivened with telling insights into the appeal of the cult, its multi-faceted forms, the variations between countries, and the appeal which it carried for followers and acolytes.” (E. A. Rees, European History Quarterly, Vol. 47 (4), 2017)

“Morgan’s wide-ranging and penetrating discussion greatly advances our understanding of personality cults in general. … This very fine and thoroughly researched book will be of great interest to scholars of political leadership and of communist and fascist movements. Not only are its case studies superbly conducted; it offers a conceptual framework that can be adapted and applied to many movements and leaders who are beyond the remit of the book itself.” (Stephen Gundle, Labour History Review, Vol. 82 (3), 2017)

“The book undoubtedly succeeds in its goal of providing a broad, comparative and analytical account of the cult of the leader in the international communist movement from the 1930s to the 1950s, when it was its height. There is a very large literature on the cultic practices of particular communist parties and particular leaders, and Morgan is on top of that literature. He goes beyond it in the range of his inquiry, his attention to different forms and aspects, and his historicisation of the subject. This will be the authoritative account of the subject.” (Stuart Macintyre, University of Melbourne, Australia)